Sonardyne Installs Vessel Positioning System

An integrated long-ultra short baseline (LUSBL) positioning system has been installed on the pipelaying vessel Norlift by Sonardyne of the U.K. Norlift is operated by Northern Ocean Services Ltd. of the U.K., and the vessel will use the system to support flexible pipelaying work on BP's Foinaven Field, West of Shetlands. The system comprises a multi-element transducer cabled to a Navigation Processor, which is the system controller and display unit. The vessel will navigate to the Foinaven area and drop a transponder to the seabed. Using data from both the GPS and the Sonardyne system, the position estimate of the transponder is continuously upgraded and improved. In practice, this reportedly represents an accuracy of better than .5 percent of slant range from ship to the seabed transponder. For more information on Sonardyne Circle 104 on Reader Service Card